


Black Ice and Golden Flames

by HalfwayThrough



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, If D&D can do that to Season 8 I can make Tyrion and Sansa bone, POV Sansa Stark, Romance, Smut, just a little bit of angsty, mentions of past abuse- nothing too graphic or in depth, tweaking the beginning of season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 09:26:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21443947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfwayThrough/pseuds/HalfwayThrough
Summary: The Dragon Queen has come to Winterfell and with her a familiar face. Despite herself, Sansa can't stop thinking about Tyrion and after the Long Night she is determined to find comfort in his arms.
Relationships: Tyrion Lannister/Sansa Stark
Comments: 36
Kudos: 278





	Black Ice and Golden Flames

**Author's Note:**

> So, this started as a smutty one off of Tyrion and Sansa at the beginning of Season 8 but now it includes an attempt to make part of the season a little more in character and like... fun? Different? I've mixed some book and tv show canon. All the quotes and specific instances of Tyrion and Sansa's marriage and time together in King's Landing comes from the book as well as certain appearance details (Dany's violet eyes), while obliviously all the season 8 things are from the tv show. I've adjusted how Dany and Sansa interact as well as killing more people in the Long Night. I didn't add the major character death because those characters aren't major to the plot of this story but if that isn't your up of tea here's your warning. 
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy, there was a lot of good Tyrion and Sansa moments at the start of Season 8 and I felt real let down by you know the whole season being a dumpster fire. Let me know what you think!

Sansa watched the party ride in. The dragon queen was a vision all in white, but the Stark didn’t appreciate the gaze she cast over Winterfell. Her violet eyes seemed to see everything as her own with no regard for the people who have been living and working the ground in her absence. Could it be called an absence when the woman had never stepped foot in snow?

Sansa swallowed back the sharp words that threatened to spill from her lips. It wouldn’t do anyone any good to make enemies now. The Dragon Queen may smile, may fawn over Jon, but she was just as dangerous to the North as Cersei. 

She watched the rest of her party ride in. Dothraki unprepared for the winter of the North, and Unsullied with their hard, closed expressions. Men dragged from their homes, brought to this strange country and for what? For a Queen. For the throne. Sansa felt sorry for them. She too had been dragged over Westeros to add to someone’s claim for the Iron Throne. It was hard, ungrateful work. 

She wondered if they missed their homes as much as she had missed Winterfell. 

Hooves kicked up muddy snow as the Imp rode in. He was hard to pick out, shorter than the rest of the riders and not dressed in the finery she was used to. He always wore bright red trimmed in gold while in King’s Landing. The bright southern sun made his clothes glimmer with each movement. It seemed the youngest Lannister had discarded his golds and crimsons for dark, muted browns. Even his hair had less of a Lannister luster. He looked pale and tired. His scar from the Blackwater was still prominent across his face but had faded over the years. His usually clean jaw was now hidden behind a thick dark beard. It made him look older, a bit more rugged. She supposed he was both of those things now, just as she was. Sansa felt her eyes hold on him for too long and quickly diverted them. 

There was no reason for her to be ashamed of staring- she’d been married to the man after all she could look at him for as long as she pleased. Yet it was the feeling stirring in her chest that bothered her the most. The eagerness for him to see her too: to see the lines in her face and hear the knowledge in her words. Childish thoughts left over from a childish time.

Jon brought Daenerys Targaryen forward, the white fur of her coat brilliant against the drab blacks and grays of the men around her. Sansa had never found comfort nor safety in standing out like that. She had always found solace in the background, but one does not cross an ocean by being invisible. 

“Winterfell is yours, your Grace,” Sansa said. She gave the woman a deep curtsey befitting her rank. Despite the conflicted emotions she felt in her heart, she had been raised to value courtesy above all else. The thought of snubbing the dragon queen never crossed her mind. A Queen was spoken to with respect, especially one with hungry dragons and an army at her back. She bowed to Queen Cersei and to Queen Margery just the same. She wondered, however, if the Targaryen knew just how much she was asking from her. Sansa had spent the last few years trying to get back home and reclaim Winterfell for the Starks and now just as she had accomplished it the whole ground was ripped from under her. Jon had thrown away their claim to their home and she had yet to see why. Surely this outcast queen had felt the same pain within her own chest. Did landing on Westeros dirt feel the same to Daenerys as stepping through Winterfell’s gates felt to Sansa? Did she know just how much this crumpling pile of old bricks meant to her?

Did she know the pain of it flying beneath someone else’s colors?

With the grand entrance completed, Sansa quickly retreated within the halls of Winterfell. She was still mulling over her emotions towards her new Queen. She had trusted Jon and she feared his choice in rulers may not be as prudent as her own. He spent his life shun from the head table and then up at the Wall with bastards and criminals. He had not seen how power ebbs and flows and how false smiles can hide dark intentions. Was it cruel to think this white queen had nefarious intentions? 

She stopped in the hall, her gloved hand gripping the stone wall beside her. She had spent too much time in the company of ladder climbers. She used to think everyone had good in them and now here she was trying to spot the cruelty in someone who had yet to show her any. Still the Targaryen left a sour taste in her mouth, one she could not ignore. 

She dragged her fingers across the stone walls as she climbed the stairs to her chambers. She told herself that over and over- this was still her home and she was still the Lady of it. No man would step in to steal her claim or asunder all she had built here. Not even Jon and his Queen.

She stepped out onto a balcony, the cool air sharp against the exposed skin of her face. Their guests would not be used to the cold. Sansa quickly flagged down a servant girl, instructing her to laden the fires with thick logs and gather every available fur she could find to distribute to the new arrivals. A small gesture, but one that may be needed. The Unsullied never wavered in their ranks but their thin coats and cracked lips told her a different story. 

She looked down to the yard. If she thought the grounds of Winterfell were busy before, it was nothing compared to today. The forges were all lit, and every person capable of moving was working for the war effort. 

She felt her stomach twist. Everyone was thinking of weapons and dragons, but not of food or the future. There were a hundred different things she could be working in that moment- there was food to ration and farmers to speak to- and yet she found herself lingering on the Imp. The last time she had seen him he was standing over Joffery’s body with an empty goblet in hand while she slipped out of the wedding party. She had been a child then. A foolish girl only just beginning to realize how cruel the world could be. 

In truth, he was handsome. Older by many years, but wise. His travels had worn on him but it suited him. Whereas in King’s Landing he had supped at Lannister tables for decades and drank himself into a stupor, in their time apart he must have been doing something more than chugging wine. He moved faster. His fingers pulling a letter from his horse’s pack with expert ease. Years ago, he was always slow. A gentle swooping of his hand. A lazy wink of the eye. He only sped up with rage and she always saw it from a distance. 

He was a different man. Bathed in the colors of the North rather than the jewel tones of the western coast. He fit in. When he came all those years ago in Robert Baratheon’s party he, like all the other southerners, had stuck out. Their clothes thin and bright, their skin tanned by the sun, and their voices too loud for the echoing halls of Winterfell. Where Tyrion stood in the yard now it looked as if he’d been there forever, but for the hand of the queen pin that glimmered on his chest. 

At that moment he looked up at the balcony where she stood and they locked eyes. She felt the air freeze in her lungs, the air turning her cheeks pink from the cold. He watched her from the grounds having turned around from handing his horse off to a stable boy. She wondered if he was making the same catalogue of her that she did of him. She was different now, that was for sure. Nothing like the young girl in her King’s Landing style braids and southern gowns. Nothing like the songs anymore. 

Sansa realized she was gripping the edge of the balcony and calmly removed her hand from the wood. Then, much like the childish girl from years ago before walkers and wights and all the creatures that thrived in the dark became real, she retreated to her room.

* * *

She sat at her writing table, trying her best to focus on the reported numbers in front of her. She was always fonder of words than numbers and began spelling out the numbers in letters if only to help her frazzled mind. 

If she should be worrying about anyone in the party it was the Queen she knew nothing about and yet her brain insisted on focusing on the single person she felt she could trust. 

Trust. That was a strong word for such a man. Tyrion Lannister was a murderer, a kinslayer, a drunk and a lecher and yet she would give him the title of trustworthy. 

Truly her memories must fail her if she would think such a thing. 

She looked to the paper again, writing out a few more letters stretching a few more coins into a couple more swords before her brain wandered off again. 

She thought of her wedding night. Of Joffery’s jeers, of Tyrion’s refusal of the bedding ceremony that had been a small comfort in a parade of nightmares. She could still smell the wine on his breath as she lay in bed. Someone has thrown rose petals across the sheets for them. Had it been a joke? There was certainly no love between them then, she was too young and he was a Lannister. A small one, but a lion still has teeth no matter the size. 

She remembered his voice.

_ “On my honor as a Lannister, I will not touch you until you want me to.” _

_ “And if I never want you to, my lord?” _

He had been hurt in the moment, but she had not cared. If placed in the same position again now, Sansa couldn’t say she’d have repeated it. She thought of her begging him to touch her, of his lips against her skin. He wouldn’t hurt her. He knew how to give a woman pleasure, and she wanted it for herself. 

Sansa threw down her quill. Her numbers no longer made sense the farther her brain wandered from arithmetic. The longer she looked at them the more they wiggled around the page and formed a scarred face with a knowing smile. 

She pushed off from her desk. The Long Night was approaching, and she needed to be ready.

* * *

She stood beside the great stone structures of the crypts. Her father stood among the Starks keeping vigil over Winterfell now. The statues had represented people long dead, never those she had known alive. It was strange to see his face in stone. It held his features, but at the same time looked nothing like him. Ned Stark had not been cold stone, perhaps to the south but not to her. Not to the North. 

Sansa fiddled with her belt where an obsidian dagger was stashed away. Jon and the others did not think the Night King’s reach could pierce stone into the crypts, but after everything Jon had done in the past few days, she was not keen to trust his judgement. 

She ushered the children down towards the far end of the crypt. If anything rose that far down the bloodline it’d hardly have a piece of skin to hold it together. Still, she felt entirely too ignorant of what they faced. Jon had promised that dragon glass killed them, but if they were already dead what was stopping them from rising again? 

Her fingers grazed the flat edge of her blade and she tried not to think about how little she knew about combat. It couldn’t be that hard if the opponent was dead, right? Stick them with the blade and get out of the way. She’d seen plenty of people die- Ser Hugh by a lance, Aunt Lysa pushed into the moon door, Littlefinger executed. And her Lord Father, beheaded in front of a crowd. 

Everyone made it look so easy. One movement and a life was gone. It was not the life she was afraid of, not with these wights. It was the skill she lacked, the practiced hand of her sister and brother. 

Her blood ran cold as the lock slipped into place on the crypt. The chatter died down and only the mumbled cry of an infant and the snap of torches echoed through the chamber. A small boy shuddered beside her, the sound of a choked sob muffled behind his fist. Sansa kneeled beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. 

“It’s going to be okay. Jon Snow and the Dragon Queen are out there right now fighting to keep you safe,” she whispered to him, pulling his hand from his mouth. There were deep teeth marks in his knuckles. She smoothed her hands over it before brushing a tear from his cheek with her thumb. “Would you like to pray for them with me?”

The boy nodded and kneeled beside her. She closed her eyes, whispering familiar comforting words to him over and over again until his sniffling stopped. They heard cries and roars above them- the clanging of steel and screaming of men- but they prayed through it. They finished their words and she opened her eyes to check on the child. He wasn’t crying anymore but he wasn’t smiling either. It was the best she could do considering the circumstance. She pointed him to the back of the crypt where a group of children his own age gathered. He slipped through the crowd towards them. Sansa watched until he sat in their little circle. All of them joined hands as if praying together for the safety of the lives within Winterfell. 

“As kind as ever,” she heard someone say. Sansa looked up from her spot kneeling in the dirt to see Tyrion looking down at her. He leaned on the side of the crypt and she noted he had his own dragon glass dagger at his hip. It was a comfort to her that at least one person down there had a weapon and been in battle before, though his scar told a story of a rather unsuccessful one. “I wonder how you continue living in this world without ever growing hard.” 

She opened her mouth to speak but quickly closed it. Tyrion must have heard of what she’d been through while he was across the sea. She saw it in his eyes. It was not the world around them he spoke of but men- of Ramsey and of Littlefinger. She didn’t think she could lie to him and agree, for she had grown harder. She’d spent the better part of the day picking apart of the Dragon Queen to tell if she was trustworthy, of cutting rations to nonfighters so that the warriors may be stronger in battle and keep them safe. She had watched while hounds ripped Ramsey’s skin clean off his face while he screamed for mercy. They did not feel like the actions of a soft little girl. 

“I don’t want to disappoint you, my lord,” she began looking up at him. “But I’m coarser than I care to admit.” 

“Well, a little rough around the edges is still worth commending in this world of stone and ice,” he said giving her a kind smile. The battle grew louder outside. She could hear individual voices screaming now as the enemy beat them back closer and closer to the entrance to the crypt. Fear stirred in her belly in the same way she had only felt three times before. 

The first when Joffery had aimed his crossbow at her in the throne room. She was stripped to the waist while everyone in court simply watched. He could have killed her for sport, and no one would have said a word. 

The second was when Aunt Lysa had her pressed over the Moon Door. She had stared down at the mere height of the fall and became lightheaded. How would it have felt to fall for that long? To scream and cry until the fear of falling was gone and only the dread of contact with the ground was left to think about? 

The third was when her maiden’s cloak had been torn from her shoulders and replaced by a flayed man. When the door had shut on them and men turned into beasts. 

She felt it again, the same inkling in her spine that death was near. That the Stranger hovered over her shoulders longing to embrace her. He had followed her through her entire life, taking her family along the way. 

Perhaps she should have been a Silent Sister and he would have left them all alone. 

Tyrion had turned at the sound of the battle and Sansa felt words rising in her throat. She reached out, grabbing his hand. He turned to her, the green of his eye reflecting the torch light like an emerald. 

“My lord-,” she began but was cut off by the loud cracking of stone. The crypt she kneeled beside broke open. Dust billowed in the air, coating her clothes and hair and filling her lungs. She was coughing it out into the dirt, but Tyrion’s hand pulled on her to move. She struggled ungracefully to her feet, following him further back. He pushed her behind him, his arm stretched across her waist to keep her back. Sansa’s hands went for her knife, her fingers fumbling as she pulled it from her belt. She curled both hands around the hilt, her arms trembling. She kept her eyes focused on the dust in front of them, watching it began to clear. Suddenly a body thrust forward. There was no shriek, no call, just a figure hurling towards them. She screamed but shoved her arms forward, burying her knife up to the hilt in the creature’s chest. She looked down at her hands where they connected with a familiar dark brown vest. She looked up and found the body headless. 

She shrieked again, stepping back. Her knife was lodged between the body’s ribs and she left it behind. 

It was father. She had watched his head mounted on the battlements, his skin picked at by vultures. She had seen it all, Joffery had made sure of that. Sansa stumbled backwards until her back connected with stone. She watched the body stagger forward with one final gasp of new life before crumbling to the floor. 

She couldn’t breathe. Her chest was tight, her throat coated in dust, and her fear choked off any other thoughts other than death. 

The Moon Door’s drop never felt so comforting as the sound of death grew louder and louder. 

A scream hit the air from further down the crypt. More stones burst open as skeletons of her bloodline clawed breathless and bloodless into the world of the living. 

“Sansa.” Her eyes were on the body, the rotten leftovers of her father. His clothes were intact, as if he just returned from riding to visit minor families in the North. He had no cloak around his shoulders. He would get cold without a cloak. “Sansa.” 

Tyrion’s hand wrapped around her wrist snapping her from her stupor. He pulled her past Ned’s body, her skirts brushing his bones, and behind her father’s statue. It was darker in this corner, away from the torches and lanterns. More screams hit the air and the sound of others struggling. 

She looked to her belt, but it was empty. Her blade was buried under Ned Stark’s body.

Her hands shook. 

She felt the air sweep up through the Moon Door, cutting against her cheeks. She saw the tip of Joffery’s arrow, aimed at her heart. She heard Ramsey’s whispers in her ear. 

She felt The Stranger closing in around her with his cloak, claiming her for his. 

Tyrion’s fingers squeezed her hand. She looked down at him. He smiled at her, a knowing look in his eye. Did he feel the same terror in his chest? 

He brought her hand up to his lips and laid a kiss on her knuckles. 

A goodbye. And a dream of what could have been. 

Suddenly, it all stopped. 

The thud of bodies hitting the floor echoed around the crypts and then it was quiet. Even the roar from outside had stopped. 

They stood frozen waiting for it to return, for someone else to scream out in pain. But it never came. 

A knocking pounded on the door to the crypts. She made a move towards it but Tyrion held her back. The knocking came again followed by a voice: 

“It’s over.” 

She watched Tyrion’s shoulders relax, but his grip never loosened on her hand. They stood at the entrance of the crypts, making sure everyone was uninjured, with their hands entangled. It wasn’t until they stepped out of the darkness into the bonfire light that they let go.

* * *

She stood at the front of the crowd, looking at the pyres lined up before them. 

There had been so much death, they could hardly count them. The bodies had been laid in piles, each taking a different level of the pyre to preserve the wood they still had. The faces they could recognize were laid towards the top, the ones scarred beyond knowledge at the bottom where they could not frighten the children. 

It seemed The Stranger had spared her that night, but not everyone had been so fortunate. 

They were all handed torches and beckoned to step out into the snow. The Queen went first, standing alone at the pyre of Jorah Mormont and weeping as she set his body ablaze. She had been wounded in the Long Night, her pale cheek marred by the nails of a wight. She had been overcome with them at one point and Ser Jorah had died at her side. She should be in bed resting, but she struggled out into the yard to pay her respects. She was strong, a fighter.

Jamie shifted beside Sansa and moved to stand beside Brienne of Tarth’s cold body. He said nothing, but she watched his face. He kept it a smooth mask, but she saw the pain in his eyes. Podrick stood beside him, his round cheeks covered in tears. Sansa brushed away her own tears from her cheeks. Brienne had truly been the best knight she had ever known and it felt entirely unfair for her to be taken like this. Sana was used to death, but this felt senseless. They’d all live another day only to march into another battle. It was tiring, but the cold breath in her lungs told her to be grateful. Others lay on pyres with no air to complain. 

Missandei, the Queen’s right hand, was on her knees beside the pyre of the leader of the Unsullied- GreyWorm they called him. She mourned openly and loudly, the sound cut Sansa to the bone. 

Finally, she moved to stand beside the body of Theon Greyjoy. 

She held his hand and remembered diving into the freezing lake. The pain of the water had been horrendous but the thought of turning back was worse. He’d led her through the forest, holding her close to him to share heat. He’d led her through it all. Years ago when she had been young and thought more of marriage than of anything else she had pitied him. A ward of the North with an unstable claim to a land he’d hardly been to. Not a proper match for anyone. But after seeing his soul, Theon was the best companion anyone could have desired. He changed. That in his hard life he still held her hand when they jumped from Winterfell’s walls.

She heard he fell defending her brother, Bran. He died a hero and at least now in death he would finally get the rest his mortal body never received. 

She pressed a Stark sigil over his chest. He may have been borne of the salty water of the Iron islands, but his heart always belonged to the North. 

The fires grew and the mourners stepped back, watching the giant bonfire curl smoke up into the grey clouds. 

She wanted to stay there just a few minutes longer, but there were duties to be done. She said a silent prayer for their souls- for the little She Bear, for the red priest, for Brienne and Jorah, for Greyworm and his Unsullied. And for Theon. She prayed that they all know peace after dying in the cold, long night. 

She moved through the crowd and up to her chambers but the smell of burning bodies still reached her there.

* * *

That night everyone was flushed with wine. She ordered the serving girls not to be stingy, for everyone- including them- deserved a drink. The Queen, despite protestations that she should be resting, sat at the head table. She looked tired; the wounds carved into her cheek still weeks away from being healed. Even then they would certainly scar. She leaned back in her chair, a hand pressed to her side where another unseen wound sat against her flesh. There were bags under her eyes, a dark purple compared to the brilliant violet of her irises. 

“Your Highness,” Sansa said, dipping into a curtsey before the head table. Dany looked up, her eyes on Sansa but her mind far away. “I wanted to thank you. You defended my family’s home and I am forever in your debt.” 

Despite her concerns about the Queen, Sansa’s words were genuine. 

“No thanks are needed, Lady Sansa. Your devotion to my claim is enough,” Dany’s eyes flickered to Jon mid-sentence. He was drinking with Tormund at the other end of the table, shouting and laughing and well past his third cup. 

Sansa’s smile never faltered despite her thoughts doing so. Her devotion was to Jon, not to a stranger. 

Dany nodded to her with a small, forced smile. Sansa curtsied and left to find her own goblet of wine. Once she found one, she stood near the fireplace and watched the others celebrate another day of life. The Hound was snarling at flirty servant girls. She wondered if he knew they wanted to lure him back to their beds. He thought himself a monster, but a scar and a sword does not a monster make. Some kindness would do him good, even if it was the temporary kind in a woman’s bed. 

Jaime sat alone, a full cup in front of him. Podrick was speaking to him but he wasn’t listening. He looked broken. Everyone had taken the death of their great knight, Ser Brienne of Tarth, especially hard. 

She sipped her wine while observing the room, and eventually her eyes fell on Tyrion. He arrived later than the rest of the party and went first to speak to his Queen. His Hand of the Queen pin shimmered in the firelight and again Sansa wondered why trust was the first emotion she felt when looking at him. 

She thought of his lips on her hand in the crypt. A shiver ran down her spine. 

He moved through the crowd, down from the high table to his brother’s side. Sansa watched him. She moved around the room, drinking from her cup and beckoning for more. She didn’t drink to forget like some of the fighters did, but to feed the fire growing in her belly. Courtesy told her a lady should never feel the desire she felt, so she drowned that little Septa’s voice in her mind with wine until she could no longer hear it. 

“Little bird looks like a hawk,” the Hound said. She looked at him, alone at his table with his drink. He had been watching her. 

“All hawks were little once,” she said, sitting across from him at the long table. Her eyes flickered over his shoulder to where Tyrion sat. He had managed to get Jamie to smile, a feat near impossible tonight. 

“You’ve spent too much time with greedy men. I can see the hunger in your eyes,” Sandor said, taking a swig from his mug. Sansa was taken aback. Even in King’s Landing he had seen right through her songs and kind words and now he did the same with her controlled looks. Was it so apparent how much the world had worn on her?

“Do little birds not eat?” she said sipping her wine. She didn’t like how much focus he had put on her, as if he was reading her very thoughts. And she didn’t want anyone knowing what thoughts were tangled in the corners of her mind. “What about you? This Hound seems to have lost his bite.” 

He growled at that. Still putting up a front but it was hollow. 

“You should have come with me,” he muttered, eyes focused on her. He was drunk but he spoke from the heart. “I wouldn’t have let anyone lay a finger on you.” 

Her eyes flickered to Tyrion again. If she had left during the Blackwater with Clegane she would have never been married to him. Would she have the same yearning in her body now if she never wore the Lannister cloak? 

She could not live in a different world. In this one she had refused him, and for it she had worn crimson, and then the grays of a bastard, and then the black of the Boltons. 

She refused to wear anything but the wolf of Winterfell from here on. 

“I heard, the last time you were traveling with a Stark girl you were nearly killed,” she said, her voice sharper than she intended. She didn’t want to think of a world where she didn’t carry scars. It was like asking Sandor if he wished his brother hadn’t burned him. Of course, he’d want to, but there was no going back. That was a different Sandor- and she would have been a different Sansa. No use playing pretend.

“Little bird _is_ a hawk,” Sandor said, looking away and drinking deeply from his cup. “God rest her soul; she was mighty fighter.” 

“To Ser Brienne of Tarth,” Sansa said raising her glass. 

“To Brienne,” Clegane chimed in, smacking his cup against Sansa’s goblet. Her wine sloshed around in the cup and she raised it to her lips, drinking deep. 

Sandor slumped onto his elbows on the table and Sansa’s eyes looked over his head at where Tyrion sat. He had wine in his hand, and he was rising from the table, a comforting hand on his brother’s arm. He turned towards the door and Sansa immediately rose from her seat. Sandor looked up at her and she gave him a small nod. 

Mother would smite her if she was rude. 

Sansa pushed through the men, waving off a servant girl who tried to pour her more wine. She deposited her goblet on a table as she watched Tyrion step out of sight. She tried to walk calmly after him. Ladies don’t run through the hall.

She made it outside the hall but found the corridor empty. She looked both ways searching for any clue as to where he might have gone. Her body was warm with wine and want and she refused to give up this hunt. 

She moved right veering up a staircase until she ran into a message boy, a pitcher of wine in his hands.

“Have you seen the Hand of the Queen?” she asked him abruptly. 

“Went to his rooms milady, but has called for more wine,” he said, hefting the pitcher up to prove his point. 

“Thank you, I’ll take it to him,” she said, wrapping a hand around the handle. 

“Milady-” the child stuttered, his eyes wide. 

“Don’t worry. Ladies and lords can do chores as well. Go grab some dinner from the hall before it’s all gone,” she said, nodding to the door behind. The child gave her a look for a moment before releasing the pitcher and scuttling past her before coming to a halt on the steps and whipping back around. 

“Thank you, Lady Stark,” he said before dipping into a bow too deep for her station and running out towards the great hall. 

Alone, Sansa let all the air out of her lungs. She looked up the stairs and felt the reality of her plan fall on her shoulders. She climbed the stairs, the weight hanging from her cloak and pulling her down. The second floor was quiet. Everyone was either downstairs drinking or out laying on a pile of burnt wood. Each step she took echoed through the entire corridor, her heart just as loud in her ears. 

She reached Tyrion’s door, the firelight spilling between the stone floor and the door’s wood. She knocked on his door. 

The door swung open.

“Thank you boy-,” his eyes looking for a child’s height and surprised to see black skirts. His gaze climbed her body resting on her face. “Lady Sansa?” 

“I’ve brought your wine, Lord Tyrion,” she said, thankful she had the pitcher in her hands for they would be trembling without something solid to hold. 

“Does the Lady of the house often run errands for servant boys?” Tyrion asked, looking around her down the hall as if expecting to see the child he had spoken with earlier. 

“Only on special occasion,” she said with a smile. “May I come in?” 

Tyrion hesitated for the briefest of moments before moving aside and motioning her to follow. 

“By all means.” 

Sansa stepped into the room, crossing to the table pressed against the farthest wall underneath a window. She heard the door close behind her and her heart fluttered in her chest, threatening to break out and take wing. Carefully, she set the pitcher down. 

“Do you need something, My Lady?” Tyrion asked. His voice was cool and collected. A political tone for treaties and compromises. Safe. 

“Actually,” Sansa began, her cheeks already burning. She turned around, her heavy skirts brushing against the floor. “There is something I wanted to say to you.” 

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow at her but stayed in place by the door. Neither made a move to cross closer. Sansa look in a large breath, rehearsing the words before she gave them life.

“My Lord, I want you to,” she said. Her whole body was on fire after speaking the words aloud. Her nerves threatened to buckle her knees. Tyrion shifted; his confusion evident on his face. 

“Want me to do what?” he gave a nervous laugh. Sansa took a breath as the burden of explaining her intentions came down. The wine helped, and the comfort she took just by being in the room with him. 

“Years ago, you said you’d never touch me until I wanted you to,” she said each word carefully, watching him as her thoughts hit the air. His confusion melted into something else- surprise? Desire? “And now I want you to.” 

“Sansa, you don’t want me to-,” he began dismissively, taking a step back but hitting the door to the hall. 

“But I do,” she said, stepped forward. She gripped the back of a chair positioned by the fire. “You said you could be good to me, is it so strange to think I would want goodness?” 

“I was comforting you- you were scared,” he said, his eyes looking everywhere but her. He moved away from the door, pacing up and down the length of the room. Sansa’s grip tightened on her chair, grateful for an anchor.

“So, you lied. You wouldn’t be good to me?” she accused, knowing they both knew the truth. 

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Tyrion said. 

“You said you wanted me. And you were right it scared me then, but it doesn’t scare me now,” she insisted. He stopped his pacing to look over at her. He looked more worried than anything else. The wine in her belly made her face hot. How could it be so difficult to get in the bed of the country’s most notorious lecher? “My Lord, I know exactly what I came here for and it was not conversation.” 

Tyrion paused, amused and shocked at her bluntness. 

“Sansa, I am appalled at your language,” he said, taking a cup of wine from the table. “But also completely charmed with your insistence on proper titles.” 

Her cheeks burned. He drank deep from his cup. 

“Did you plan on using such titles in bed?” Tyrion joked over the rim of his goblet, taking another sip. Embarrassment made her stomach twist. Never direct answers, but always a witty comment.

“It depends. What does My Lord like to be called in bed?” Sansa snapped back as sweet as she could muster. Tyrion choked on his wine. It was clear he was trying to get her to leave. To have her wear a pretty blush and run out when affronted with the reality of her desire. She was not so easily swayed, not now. 

“Now that you mention it,” Tyrion said, clearing his throat. “I do prefer My Lord.” 

“It’s nice to know that you have not lost your sense of humor,” Sansa said, her desire fading as his jokes grew bitter. “You cling to it, like men do to power.” 

“Jon said you were more vocal,” he said, pointing a stubby finger at her. 

“Do you not enjoy it, My Lord?” Sansa asked. 

“No, it’s quite refreshing compared to the months where you cried over overcooked peas,” Tyrion said. His words cut deeper than she thought they would. It felt as if his words were enclosing inside the Red Keep again with its high walls and narrow windows. Moving to Tyrion’s chambers and trying to play a wife when she was still a child. Afraid that any small mistake would mean her life. She’d been doing the best she could to make conversation with a man twice her age. She had nothing in common with a man who wore the golden lion and benefitted from the slaughter of her family. She’d been terrified. 

Despite all of that, he had been the only man to not threaten her. Joffery spoke of her death often, Ramsey had pushed her to the brink of her mind. Even the Hound, with his soft words and kind gestures, had come to her room with brandy on his breath and held a blade to her throat. 

She felt her resolve crumble under his words. They hit like the Sir Meryn’s gauntlet. Like Littlefinger’s fingers gripping her arm too tightly. Like Sweet Robin screaming into her ear. Like Ramsey’s lips on her skin. 

He’d never see her as anything other than the empty-headed girl in King’s Landing, crying over mutton and trying to blend into the walls. 

“Excuse me, My Lord. I seemed to have disturbed your evening,” she said, holding up her chin to keep her tears from falling. She went straight for the door and left without a curtsey. 

She escaped to the hallway. She walked straight past the drunken courtiers until she reached her rooms where she fell into a chair and allowed herself to finally cry. 

She had dreamed of knights. Of princes and maidens, of true love and honor. Deep down she still clung to them. The pretty songs and the idea that love could exist in such a harsh world. She couldn’t say she loved Tyrion, but she felt she had the capacity to. That of all the men she’d met in the world he was one of the best. It wasn’t exactly a compliment, but it was something. 

How foolish of her to think anyone would want her and her alone. Littlefinger wanted her mother. Ramsey wanted her claim. Tyrion had never wanted her; he’d said as much in King’s Landing. It was a sham wedding meant to punish them both. An imp and the disgraced daughter of a traitor. But at least he got the North in it. She had nothing. 

For once she wanted to be a maiden in a song and find joy in a man’s kiss.

She rubbed the tears from her eyes, moving to her bedside and started removing her clothes. There were other things to worry about now. She had a Queen to please and the North to protect. 

She would marry the North for it was as cold as she felt. 

Sansa threw her clothes over a chair, choosing to undress without any of her maids. They were probably off in the stairways with their own choice of lover. She’d seen the two of them whispering behind the stables, their hands slipped into one another’s bodices. If they could find love let them have it. Sansa would not deprive others of what she could not have. 

She laid in bed, her hair loose on her shoulders. She wore a thick winter nightgown and stared into the fire beside the bed. Jon had his dragon queen. Arya had the Baratheon bastard turned Lord. She pressed her face into her pillow. She was fine alone but there would always be that lonely girl within her that prayed to the Seven for warm arms and a kind heart. She’d prayed her whole life for it and all she’d gotten in return was cruelness and pain. 

She was lonely. She distrusted everyone whom she did not know and now her tired brain was trying to spin Princes out of Imps. How horrid a thought that people had been so cruel that the man she sought out had been merely polite to her. _Oh, how kind of you Lord Tyrion not to rape me, others have not been so kind. How kind of Lord Tyrion not to beat me, others have not been so kind. Look at how Lord Tyrion speaks with me as if I am a person- dare I say his equal!?_

Others have not been so kind. 

She thought of the songs she sang as a child. She used to dream about the parts where lovers kissed for the first time but now she thought of the embraces. The kind words they shared in the dark of night hiding from evil that would tear them apart. 

All she wanted was kindness, but it seemed there was very little of it left. Like grain in the winter it was dwindling dangerously low. 

A knock at her door pulled her from her thoughts. She rose, throwing a robe over her gown and stepping to the door. Sansa ran a hand over her face trying to appear less crestfallen than she felt. She was expecting one of the maids checking in on her, no doubt they’d rush to assist her once they realized how late it was. Instead, she found the Imp waiting in the corridor. He was still in his clothes from the Feast but held no candle. Just a shivering man with a coat too thin for the North’s cold.

She said nothing. 

“Lady Sansa,” Tyrion began, before peering over his shoulders. “May we speak?” 

She wanted to shut the door on him but that would be rude. She stepped back and allowed him to enter. She closed the door behind and felt how odd it was to have him in her rooms. She had been fine meeting him in his, but this felt more personal than she cared to admit. 

“Lady Sansa, I owe you an apology,” he began. She looked to him, careful to keep her expression blank. He’d do his speech, clear his conscience, and leave. Then she could lay in bed and drink wine until she finally fell asleep. “I’m afraid my first instinct is to never take anyone’s words at face value. You come to me looking for… companionship and I acted… foolishly.”

“Apology accepted, My Lord,” Sansa said quickly, her hands folded neatly in front of her. Tyrion’s shoulders sagged. 

“Could we talk? We have a lot of catching up to do,” he asked, his eyes hopeful. Sansa felt her heart twist in her ribs.

“If I’m being honest, My Lord, I don’t feel like dredging up the past,” she tried to keep her voice calm even with every memory from the years since she had last seen Tyrion hitting her from every side. 

“Of course,” he quickly replied. “What about the future?” 

“Yes,” Sansa said after a pause. “We can talk about the future.” 

They sat at the small table in the front room of her chambers. It was usually used for intimate meetings and she supposed this was one as well. Tyrion poured them both wine and sat down across from her. 

“The dead have been defeated,” Tyrion said raising a glass. 

“May we drink to the health of her majesty Daenerys Targaryen,” Sansa said, clinking her goblet against his. 

“And Arya Stark, slayer of darkness,” he added. He drank deeply from his cup and Sansa could only stomach a sip. She’d had too much wine tonight already and she didn’t care for how her head felt.

“I presume the Queen will stay here while her army rests and gathers supplies?” Sansa asked, trying to be polite.

“One presumes, but she seems anxious to meet my sister in battle,” Tyrion said. 

“Southern soldiers would not fair well this far north. Perhaps instead of rushing to meet her, she should lure them up here?” Sansa added.

“I’ll make sure to mention it to her.” 

A silence stretched out over the table. They could hear the Feast winding down outside. 

“Are you happy to be back in your home?” Tyrion asked, his fingers fidgeting with his cup. 

“Yes. It is not as it was when I was a child, but the spirit of it is intact. Father said there should always be a Stark in Winterfell-,”

“You plan on being that Stark?” he interjected. 

“Who else? Jon will go down south with his Queen, Arya could never sit still much less stay here her whole life,” Sansa said. 

“And Bran?” 

“Bran isn’t a Stark anymore. He told me himself. He’s the Three Eye Raven now. He’s… he’s someone else.” 

“Does that mean you would never marry?” Tyrion asked. She glanced at him. It was a curious question to ask, especially from him. 

“Who is there for me to marry?” she half laughed. “Of the major houses nearly all of them are dead. The Tyrells are gone, the Greyjoys dead, the Baratheon left is a blacksmith with no idea what’s he’s doing. Robin Arryn is a nightmare and half my age, the Riverlands are in ruins-”

“And the Lannisters?” Tyrion asked. She paused. He was looking at her very closely watching her face. 

“I did marry one once. He was kind to me when I desperately needed it,” she said softly. She felt the cold of North melt from her chest replaced by the warmness of songs. “But I hear he will soon have very important duties in King’s Landing.” 

Tyrion reached across the table, taking her hand in his. Sansa’s heart jumped into her throat. 

“I have it on good authority that he has no responsibilities tonight,” his voice was low. Sansa found herself at a loss for words. He was looking at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. Focused, wanting, but different than she’d seen before. It lacked the worry and guilt that usually gripped his features. He was soft with desire- and he looked years younger for it. “What do you say Sansa, would you be my Lady Wife again for one night?” 

Heat flushed her skin and suddenly her thick gown and winter robe were too much. 

“It would be an honor.” 

She stood, her hand still wrapped in his, and led him through the small entertaining chamber to her bedroom. The fire burning in the hearth cast a warm orange glow over the bed. She had thrown the covers aside when he arrived, the pillows all moved to one side of the bed where she tended to curl up closer to the fire. She sat on the side of the bed, her toes curling against the floor in her stockings. Tyrion pulled off his boots, setting them beside the bed before joining her. 

He sat on his knees beside her, not touching just looking. She felt a blush creep across her cheeks. She had never known men to wait so long when they had a subject so willing.

Finally, he reached out brushing her hair behind her ear. 

“Gods, you are beautiful.” Sansa had been called beautiful many times in life. By Cersei, by her lady mother, and by other women of the court. Littlefinger often remarked how much she looked like mother and how pretty it made her. Ramsey had called her pretty once, but it was a cut rather than a compliment. Beautiful had simply been a title she’d worn. Like The Mountain was tall and Tyrion was short- Sansa was beautiful. Yet now, as the lmp said the words to her, they felt different. She felt seen. As if he was not just complimenting the length of her lashes or the shimmer of her hair, but of the person that was behind it all. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest and her breath hitched. Of all the men she’d been alone with, Tyrion had always seen her clearly. 

Littlefinger saw mother, Ramsey saw a victim, Joffery saw a plaything. Tyrion saw Sansa. 

He cupped her face in his hands and, as gently as the first snowflake drifts to the ground, he kissed her. Her eyes closed, her entire body tense with the action. His lips were soft and tasted of wine. They sat there, lips barely touching, for a moment. His hands were warm on her cheeks, her breath frozen in her throat. Their lips met again, this time with more force. Their lips moved together, Sansa’s hands fluttering around for something to do before hooking themselves in Tyrion’s vest. 

When was the last time she wanted to be kissed?

Her lips parted and his tongue brushed against hers. She smiled against his lips, the sensation foreign but entirely welcomed. His hands fell from her face, drifting down to untie the sash of her robe. She hardly noticed the garment being opened and pulled off her shoulders. So focused on Tyrion’s kiss, she never broke their contact even as she shrugged the robe off onto the floor. Her body was burning far too bright for so many layers anyway. 

Desire pooled in her stomach begging her for more. She wrapped her arms around Tyrion’s neck, trying to bring herself closer to him- to have more of his touch and more of his mouth. So excited for her conquest she pressed too roughly and knocked Tyrion back against the sheets. 

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, hovering above him. He looked up at her, his flushed lips pulling into a smile. 

“Please, my Lady, never apologize for kissing too much,” he chuckled. Sansa smiled before lowering herself down to press her lips to his again. It reminded her of the stories of the sleeping maidens, how knights would lean over their forms and wake them with a kiss. But now she was the knight, and Tyrion her maiden she woke from a spell. Her breasts pressed against his chest and while the contact, even through her gown, made her blush she savored the feeling. Tyrion reached out, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her closer against him. She giggled, her joy too much to hold within her ribs, before her lips were on his again. She never realized how long she could kiss for, and how much she would enjoy it. 

“Sansa,” he mumbled against her lips. She pulled back, afraid she had hurt him. He stared up at her, his eyes half closed as if drunk. Her hair fell around his face like a curtain. “Sansa… I missed you.” 

Her mouth hung open. Missed her? She had been a fearful girl the last they spoke, practically useless but for her claim on the North. She did not think of herself as person people missed. Yet she felt her heart race in her breast because she had missed him too. When she walked into the Godswood to face a second husband. When she sat with Sweet Robin through a tantrums and thought what witty words he might say. She was always thinking of what the Imp might do or say for he was never afraid of voicing his opinion. Sansa never had the luxury, not until now. 

“I missed you too,” she said, her voice soft. 

They’re lips met again, warm and needy. His hands were in her hair. A moan escaped her lips as the delicious feeling of the heat of his fingers against her scalp. She straddled his lap, her nightgown pooling around her like a lake of soft gray fabric. Her fingers found the clasps of Tyrion’s vest and she quickly began to free him from the garment. He helped her, his own hands joining her cause. After a few more layers he was stripped to the waist, his clothes tossed to the floor. Sansa ran her hands over his chest. He skin was warm, and his heartbeat like a horse at a gallop beneath her fingers. She shifted and felt his cock, thick and hard beneath her. She gasped. She should have expected it, but it caught her off guard. Tyrion threw his head back against the sheets and laughed. 

“Fear not, Lady Wife,” he chuckled. “For I have tamed him.” 

Sansa wanted to stuff her face into her pillows for it must match her hair with the heat of the blush she felt on it. But she didn’t want to be the little girl who blushed and ran. Instead she took a breath and slipped a hand beneath her nightgown. Her fingers pressed into his breeches. She could feel the coarseness of his hair and soon the thickness of his desire. 

Tyrion, at first, tried to sit up to slow her down but once her fingers were locked around him, he collapsed back to the bed throwing an arm across his eyes. 

“Oh Sansa, I fear I’ve fallen asleep in my chambers and have dreamt this all,” he gasped. She pulled him free from his clothing and rose to her knees. There she paused. She knew the mechanics of it all, but she felt her fear grip her body. She knew how to withstand a man, not how to take pleasure from him. Tyrion must have felt her hesitate for he was sitting up, his arms around her waist and his eyes on her once more. “My sweet Lady Wife, let me help you.” 

He pressed her into the sheets, planting kisses against her lips and jaw as he did. His fingers wrapped around the hem of her nightgown and pulled it up. Sansa wiggled out of the garment. She was fully bared to him now, her nipples coming to hard peaks as cold air hit them. Tyrion kicked off his pants and leaned over her to kiss her once more. He trailed kisses down her neck, between her breasts, and down her stomach. His hands dipped between her thighs, his fingers moving against her with a steady rhythm. 

Her breath was ragged, her fingers clawing at the sheets and her head thrown back into the pillows. With just his fingers he made the fire of pleasure burn within her. She pressed herself against his fingers, stoking the fire growing within her. She listened to Tyrion’s labored breath, the heat of his skin on hers. She was beginning to see why so many had been seduced by the Imp, for only his hands working against her made her entire body shiver and shake. If it was so easy to make her feel this way why had so many hurt her? 

Or perhaps this was Tyrion’s special touch that made her wriggle beneath him.

His fingers worked at her even as she felt him at her opening. One hand kept her moaning and the other held himself ready. 

“My Lady Wife?” he asked, his breath ragged. 

“Please,” she sputtered out before he could even ask the question. She felt him so close and she needed him now. He pressed into her with a grunt that soon morphed into a pleasured groan. He moved within her slowly, allowing her body to adjust to his girth. He was large, but she did not feel pain. She felt wonderful friction and the sensation of being filled after being hollow for so long. His fingernails did not cut into her hips, and his voice did not scoff in her ear. She peered down at him where he held himself up with an arm on either side of her. His shoulders trembled. 

“Lord Tyrion are you okay?” Sansa asked, unfurling a hand from the sheets to place on his shoulder. His body shivered, she could feel it where they were connected. It pressed him further into her, filling her body with warmth. 

“I’m great,” he panted, his eyes focused down at her navel. “I don’t want the show to end too soon.” 

Sansa had heard enough chatter at court to know what he spoke of. All she knew was that she wanted more of him, and she wanted it now. She shifted beneath him, angling her hips so that he pressed further inside of her. Tyrion groaned, his hands moving from the bed to press her hips against the sheets. Not too hard, just enough to know if she were about to move again. Despite his cry the feeling of him pressed deeper within her was too enticing. 

“You’re not helping,” he smiled at her. His face shined with sweat. 

“I didn’t think I was,” she replied. Still the itch within her still yearned to be scratched. “Please, my Lord this is torture.” 

“Oh, you’re the one being tortured,” he said. 

“Stop thinking about it, just- just be with me,” Sansa said, her voice gentle. She sat up, her arms pressing him back again against the blankets. With him deep inside her she felt at ease. She pressed her legs on either side of his hips as she sat in his lap. From this new angle he pressed all different spots within her, and she took a moment for them all to wash over. Full and wanted. She looked down at him and it seemed she’d finally rendered Tyrion Lannister speechless. She took his hand and pressed it against her breast. “Be with me.” 

She started out slow, a simple rocking motion against him. His thumb flicked over her nipple and she bit back the gasp that rose in her throat. Sansa focused on his length within her, rising and falling down on him to keep the friction building inside burning. Like building a fire in the hearth with each thrust of their hips a new log to the flame. She moved faster, needing more of him needing heat and touch more than ever before. 

She pressed her own fingers between her legs, rubbing more flame within her as she bobbed up and down on Tyrion’s cock. He was mumbling under his breath, half moans half praises. She felt her own lips moving but wasn’t aware of what she was saying. She was lost in the sensation of him within her, of the feeling of him beneath her and his eyes on her body. 

She moved faster. Her muscles ached and cried out for rest but she continued riding past discomfort towards the pleasure she had never felt before. 

And suddenly she found it. Her entire body jerked, her mouth falling open as Tyrion’s name left her lips. Her fire had reached its peak and suddenly she was shimming with tendrils of pleasure. Before the sensation had stopped Tyrion flipped them over, pressing her into the sheets as he thrusted into her with new vigor. Each thrust brought a new sensation, sustaining the initial shake of pleasure beyond what she thought it could last. His fingers were on her again, pressing her further into this new foreign sensation of bliss until his hips faltered. He pulled out, spilling his seed on her thigh. His bit down on his bottom lip as he came, his eyes closed and his body trembling with the force of it. 

They stayed like that, catching their breath and letting every sensation roll through them. Finally, Tyrion rolled off the bed, grabbing a cloth and wiping her clean. Sansa watched him, his eyes focused on his task. She hadn’t asked him to come outside of her but he did anyway. It hadn’t crossed her mind and yet she was so thankful for it. Her fingers ran across her belly and found herself thanking the seven once again that despite his efforts Ramsey never rooted a child in her. However as quickly as the thought entered her head she shoved it away. 

She didn’t want to think about Ramsey, not now.

Tyrion shifted off the bed, picking up his shirt from the floor and pulling it on. 

“Are you leaving?” Sansa asked, rolling onto her stomach to look at him. 

“You need to rest,” he said. 

“I want to rest with My Lord Husband,” she smiled, offering a hand to him. He took it immediately, pressing a kiss to her palm and then her wrist and up her arm until he was standing at the end of the bed and into her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it, climbing into the bed with her. 

They dove beneath the sheets, pulling the thicker blankets over them. She cuddled up to him, thankful for his warmth on such a cold night. She ran her hand beneath his shirt, feeling the coarseness of his chest hair, but also his heart beating beneath his skin. Tyrion pressed a lazy kiss against her forehead. 

“Goodnight Sansa,” he said. 

“Goodnight Tyrion.”

* * *

They woke to ashes burning in the hearth and a loud knocking at the door. Sansa jumped out of bed, sleep still blurring her mind. Though the sudden chill of the morning on her bare body was enough to clear it. She quickly grabbed her robe from the floor and threw it over herself. The knocking continued. Tyrion rolled out of bed himself, grouching about the racket. Sansa rushed to the door to pull it open and found a surprising sight. 

“Your Majesty,” she stuttered. The Queen stood outside her door in her fine white coat and silver chain. Her hair was neatly braided but her eyes were still ringed with deep purple. The scar she had earned in the battle was puckered and crusted over with scabs and yet she still held the dangerous beauty she had when she first arrived. “What is the trouble?” 

“My Hand is missing,” she said, her voice cold. “I need every solider, servant, and chambermaid looking for him.” 

All the blood drained from Sansa’s face, her hands holding her robe tightly to her bare skin. 

“No need,” Tyrion called. He stood beside Sansa, dressed in his clothes from the night before, his hair a ragged mess and his coat only half buttoned. Daenerys raised an eyebrow looking between the two of them. Sansa wanted to melt into the walls but she held herself still. “You can call off your search. Lady Sansa has found me.” 

“I’m sure she has,” Daenerys said, pulling her lips into a tight smile that made Sansa’s stomach flip over. She had not wanted to broadcast her desires to everyone, and especially not the Queen, but the way she reacted made her regret it even more so. As if the Dragon Queen was being pulled taunt with each new word. “Tyrion whenever you are… ready we require you in a private meeting.” 

The Queen’s entourage suddenly came into view- Missandei and a few others that always trailed behind her. They shared their nods and Dany turned, taking her posse with her. 

Tyrion fixed his remaining buttons, running a hand through his hair. 

“Do I look presentable?” he asked, showing off his clearly disheveled appearance. 

“You’ve looked worse,” Sansa laughed. Tyrion smiled at her before stepping across the threshold into the hall. 

“The day must begin, I know you have plenty to do as well,” he said, lingering by her door. “However, after all of that has concluded would you mind being my Lady Wife again tonight?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Sansa said with a smirk. 

“I’ll make certain of it.”


End file.
